Speach delivered on 9 February 2008 in Bloemfontein
Good morning ladies and gentleman, my name is Robert Konigkramer, I am from Pietermaritzburg in Kwa-Zulu Natal and as you’ve probably figured out, I am addicted to PROPERTY. I have been invited here this morning by TREOC to speak to you all about the success I have had with property, and how it has opened so many doors for me, created so many opportunities, and put me well on the way to financial freedom – and how that financial freedom has brought about a happiness and fulfillment most people never achieve in their lifetimes.
How many of you here this morning are renting the house or flat that you currently live in? How many of you here today woke up this morning in a house that wasn’t yours? How many of you here to day pay rent every month? Are you too scared to pay your own bond and so you would rather pay someone else’s? With all due respect – you’re mad! You are the kind of people that make me and other investors like my self rich! Thank you for that…
The first property I ever bought was a flat for R100 000. The lady I bought it from had a bond of R80 000. Her monthly bond payments then were about R800 per month. She was in arrears with her levies and bond payments and so had to sell. I bought it and she remained in the flat as a tenant paying me R1000 per month. About 3 years later now and she is still MY tenant, her rent is R3000 per month. That is nearly four times what her bond would be if she still owned the flat today! And she would be paying off HER flat and not MY flat! Besides that, the flat is worth about R450 000 today.
This morning I am NOT here to brag about my success, honestly, until about a month ago when I was asked to talk here this morning, I had not given it much thought. I am not the kind of person who gloats about his success, or expects to be treated differently. I enjoy what I do, and this is important, the success, the money, as cliché as it sounds – will follow!
I have just turned 24 years old, I own over two dozen investment properties, drive a brand new German Sports Car, live in one of the most exclusive Estates in Natal in an apartment worth far more than the average home in town. I run my own business with a turnover of R6 million last year and an expected turnover of close to R10 million this coming year – you could say that at my age, I am successful – yes!
But those are the material things. Success is NOT just measured by material value – it is important to try and maintain a balance, I have a BEAUTIFUL girlfriend, a LOVING, HAPPY family and I am in a position where I can, and do, give, not just money, but also very importantly, my time, to charities and those less fortunate than myself. When I get into bed at night I breathe a sigh of happiness – my… life… is… good…!
So, how did someone like me become successful? It wasn’t a big inheritance, I didn’t win the lottery – the answer is simple – PROPERTY! Property has become my passion and the key to so many doors! Property is the answer to financial freedom, to money, financial freedom is the way to a better quality of life. I am NOT in love with money, I am in love with the idea of a better quality of life – the choices that money brings! Money allows you to do things and go places you never dreamed of before – to help people, to change lives, in ways you never thought possible.
50% of the names mentioned on ‘The Times’ Rich List made their money through investing in property. Clans like Trump and Hilton are two of the richest people in the world and they have built their fortune and passed it from generation to generation in the form of real estate. Even those people like Gates and Buffet who made their money in some way other than property now have a substantial portfolio of investment property. With a little inspiration… and some financial education, each of us has a good chance to make a fortune through real estate investing.
I met Coert and was introduced to the TREOC way just before my 21st Birth Day. My life has not been the same since…
I attended one of Coert’s first seminars in Durban with an Attorney who I had met through work. This same attorney was helping me with the purchase of my first flat at the time. He himself already owned a number of properties. After attending Coert’s seminar I put the brakes on with purchase and transfer of this first flat. I was doing it all wrong! I restructured the deal in the way which I had learnt and then went ahead with the purchase – all this against the recommendation of this attorney who didn’t believe in and wasn’t open to anything we had learnt in the seminar. I took transfer a few weeks later – I owned my first flat before I was even 21!
At this stage the attorney friend of mine (who is about 40 years old) owned four flats. I went against what he recommended, I followed the TREOC way and not ‘his’ way – or the traditional way of investing. He didn’t see and he wasn’t open to the TREOC way of investing – even after attending the seminar. He was blind to the concept which is in essence very simple! Shame! I guess you could say I was naïve, I didn’t have much to loose – but it’s definitely worked for me! Today about 3 years later he owns six properties – I own more than FOUR times that and have an equity base much greater than his! Who’s made the right decision, not the attorney?
Did I have rich parents or some well paying job? No. I was working in a small IT store earning about R3000 per month. You definitely do not need millions to make millions! From my first flat it snowballed from there and today I am a millionaire because of property. This way of investing in property got me into the financial position where I could leave my job and start my own business. I had the start-up capital and the all important cash flow! I now run my own business doing something I really enjoy – I am my own boss!
Why is property particularly such a good investment?
Well, no other investment allows you to purchase with other peoples’ money (The Bank’s) and pay this back with other peoples’ money (the rental income from tenants). Can you buy shares on the stock market using other peoples’ money and get someone else to pay that loan back? I don’t think so…
As I said earlier, investment property has opened so many doors for me. I came to develop a real passion for property and when I decided it was time to leave my ‘job’ and do something I really enjoyed, the choice was obvious. I started my own business – building and construction. I have built a solid business over the past two years, I now employ over 30 permanent staff, and have an expected turnover of about R10 000 000 this coming financial year. Not a bad business! None of this would have been possible without the security and cash flow which my investment properties have brought me!
So it’s one thing to own a number of properties but what is really important is what those properties can do for you – how you use the wealth created to push yourself further up the ladder of success? So why do I work so hard in my business if my investment properties can make me so much money? The answer is simple – because I want to! Who wants to sit around all day doing nothing? Not me! I strive daily for success – not money, overall success in life! Take Coert for example, he spends his life giving seminars and running the TREOC organization – because he’s desperate for money? NO! He enjoys it! He enjoys seeing people become financially free, he enjoys seeing other people succeed. He enjoys what he does! Yes he also makes money in the process, but important is that he is doing what he enjoys!
To be financially free is NOT when your business is doing well or when you have a well paying job, to be financially free is when you can do whatever you want, whatever you enjoy, pursue your passion and the success of that venture does not effect your financial freedom. There are days when I get gatvol with my staff and threaten to close my business… I can. I don’t need my business to be financially free. My investment properties make me financially free – that is true financial freedom.
What you choose to do doesn’t have to relate to property like Coert and I – maybe you’re a doctor who wants to open his or her own practice, a mechanic working for someone else and longing to open your own workshop. A teacher who wants to open her own Creche? A lawyer wanting to open his or her own firm. Maybe you’re a nurse who wants to open a private home to care for the aged. Do you work as a salesman making your boss rich and wish to open your own business? You can’t go through life miserable, you have to do what you enjoy! What is the one big thing stopping you? Money? Financial security? Thought so? Well let me tell you again, property… is… the… answer…!
What about helping your parents who are struggling in retirement due to inadequate financial planning? I now am able to support my mother who retired after 35 years of service with a major South African Bank and a pension payout not nearly enough to sustain her. I have made more in property in the last 3 years (starting with very little), than my mothers pension is worth after 35 years! I also contribute monthly towards the living expenses of my grandmother who is in the same financial situation. What about helping a family member achieve their dreams? After my brother did what most South Africans do after school and went to London for two years he returned and started looking for a job, he wanted to do his trade as a plumber. I was in a fortunate financial position to help him and suggested he open his own plumbing / renovation business, employing plumbers instead of being a plumber. Today he owns and runs a successful and growing company. He’s never put his hand in a toilet, (except once I think when he dropped his car keys in the toilet), but he employs the people who do!
None of this, and so much more possible without the wealth created for me by property.
And then there’s the part where you reward yourself for all your hard work – my girlfriend and I spent 1 month in the last December / January holidays traveling around the UK and Europe. Christmas skiing in Italy and New Years under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Visiting fiends in England, Scotland and Germany as well.
They say money can’t buy you happiness – yes that is true to some extent, but it can give you choices and a quality of life that is unattainable to many!
There is an important difference between an investor and a speculator. As part of TREOC you will learn to be an investor, NOT a speculator. A speculator is in a property for the short term gains, as soon as a property makes money he sells it. The TREOC way of investing is totally different – you NEVER sell. Not when the property market is up, or when it is down. Never! History shows us that in property there are always ups and downs but in the long term they are all ups! This has been happening for hundreds of years!
So if you don’t sell then how do you ‘make money’? I will not go into the mechanics of the TREOC method but basically you use the capital gains that your property has achieved as security to further grow your property portfolio, making you even more money and all the while scraping the cream off the top for your everyday enjoyment!
How many of you know someone who owns an investment property, owns more than one property? Just because you own an investment property does not automatically mean that you are rich, or that you will be successful.
There are all sorts of things to consider, most you have probably not even thought about –
* Do you buy the property in your personal name? Your spouses name? Form a company and buy it in a company name?
* What happens if you die? Does your family have to pay estate duty on the property just to keep it, can they afford it?
* How do you go about obtaining a loan from the bank? Do you know what the NCA is? No, it’s not a dreaded disease.
* What is the best type of property to buy? Land? A flat? A townhouse? A farm?
* What kind of rental can you expect? Who will collect the rental?
* What happens when interest rates go up?
* How does owning an investment property affect your tax affairs? Does it have to mean that you pay more tax?
* When do you sell? Do you sell? If you don’t sell then how do you ever “make” money?
Do you know any investors who now over the last few months since all the interest rate hikes have had to sell one or more property? Do you often hear people tell you that the property market is going to CRASH, the bubble is going to burst? Stay away from property? I get this all the time – I can guarantee you that anyone who tells you any of this is definitely not doing it the TREOC way. If I listened to everything that everybody said I would still be at property number one, maybe not even?! Anyone who is forced into a position where he HAS to sell a property to save another, or save himself, definitely does not know the answers to those questions I spoke about earlier! I know the answer to every single one of those questions, so does Coert and every other TREOC member – that is why we do not sell, even in the face of high interest rates. We don’t believe in a crash, or burst – and given the fact that South Africa has one of the fastest growing middle classes in the world we believe that property is the only way!
So, Property is the answer? Yes! But, where to begin? This is the important part – while it might be easy to make money with property, it is not simple, and without the correct support structure, and the backing of those who really know what they are doing, it is even easier to fall flat on your face. You are all here today as guests of TREOC, and I am telling you that if it was not for TREOC and the methods that they teach, and the support they offer, my success would not have reached the magnitude it has.
In his books, Donald Trump talks about how in the 90’s he nearly lost billions because he wasn’t prepared for the recession in the US economy. With the right knowledge and support you can be prepared for anything that the South African market can throw at you, high interest rates, even higher interest rates, changes in law, anything. You have nothing to fear if you have a plan!
Are you someone who keeps thinking that one day life will get better, something will change? Nothing is going to change until YOU change. You have to take the first step! Don’t be scared of success! All those negative people – those ‘oh no, don’t do’ people – I think that they are just scared of success at the end of the day. No one cares about you as much as you do – take control of your own future.
It is good to dream big. You will get nowhere in life unless you create big dreams, but you must have the courage to make those dreams real! Once you set your goals, start looking for opportunities to start acting on them. Don’t hesitate, don’t let the fear of failure hold you back – as the saying goes, “you have nothing to fear but fear it self”! That I believe goes for everything in life and it is something which I have learned and experienced. You… have… to… take… the… first… step…! When it comes to property, and your success as an investor on the road to becoming financially free – I can tell you, it’s not only what you know, but WHO you know. If you have a knowledge base and support system like TREOC offers, you have nothing to fear! Your success is almost guaranteed!
After this morning I am sure that all of you are going to be excited and ready to change your life with property, ready to dream and live big – you are all motivated to succeed. A quote that appeared at the bottom of one of Coert’s e—mails some time ago made me smile – it read; “Motivation alone is not enough, if you have an idiot and you motivate him, all you have is a motivated idiot!” What I am saying is that as you go out into the market, do so with the right knowledge and support – don’t be an idiot.
My philosophy in life is NOT to say I CANT – but rather to ask “How can I?” Especially in times of adversity; ask questions, l.e.a.r.n – and then – just do it! Write your own future. Life is a journey, it is up to you to make the ride worthwhile.
Good luck to all of you… thank you!
Exclusive Comment
I would say the fact that he has two dozen properties could be more related to the fact that he now has a successful construction company to sustain the cash flow. I can’t imagine many people being able to sustain purchasing a new flat every second month starting with nothing and earning a salary of less than R10 000 a month.
A great story with great principles however. Congratulations Robert.
Source Treoc.com